Brian Jacques, who died on February 5 aged 71, wrote the “Redwall” series of children’s novels, which sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and were translated into 28 languages.
Brian Jacques in Liverpool Photo: JASON ROBERTS
His first book, Redwall (1986) – originally handwritten on 800 sheets of recycled paper kept in a Safeway grocery bag – featured a timid mouse called Matthias who musters up the courage to defend his home, Redwall Abbey. Jacques wrote his story in a particularly vivid style so that the blind children could “see” the action in their imaginations.
Without Jacques’s knowledge, his friend and fellow socialist, Alan Durband, head of English at the Liverpool Institute, showed the novel to his own publisher. “This is the finest children’s tale I’ve ever read,” declared Durband, “and you’d be foolish not to publish it.” Soon Jacques was called to London and contracted to write five more books.
Jacques’s extensive cast of characters includes a range of anthropomorphic animals with names like Captain Rake Nightfur and Skor Axehound. They tangle with assorted monsters in settings such as Mossflower Woods and a land called Southsward. There are frequent references to a netherworld called “Hellsgate”.
Asked about comparisons with the Harry Potter genre, Jacques pointed out that he predated JK Rowling by 10 years. He also disliked being labelled a fantasy writer. “It smacks of swords and sorcery and dungeons and dragons, and this is not at all the feeling of my books,” he explained. “I like to think of [them] as old-fashioned adventures that happened 'once upon a time, long ago and far away’; in fact, good yarns is how I describe them.”
James Brian Jacques was born on June 15 1939 in the Kirkdale area of Liverpool, and grew up in the city’s docklands. His father, a truck driver of French descent, was widely-read, instilling in his son a love of storytelling and in particular the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Brian soon demonstrated a precocious writing talent of his own. Aged 10, he was told to write a story about animals and turned in a tale about a bird that cleaned a crocodile’s teeth. His teacher refused to believe that a boy so young could write so imaginatively and caned Brian when he insisted he had not copied it.
Leaving St John’s School at 15, he joined the Merchant Navy as a seaman and travelled far and wide. On his return to Liverpool he worked as a railway fireman, a longshoreman, bus driver, policeman, postmaster and stand-up comedian.
With six others, including his two brothers, Jacques formed a folk group called the Liverpool Fishermen, which was popular in local pubs during the Mersey music boom of the 1960s, and released an album, Swallow the Anchor, in 1971.
In the 1970s Anvil Press published some of his humorous poems and short stories, beginning with Get Yer Wack in 1971. These were followed by Yennoworrameanlike, A Mersey Bible, Scouse with the Lid Off, and finally, in 1979, Jakestown, named after his popular weekly radio show, broadcast for more than 30 years on BBC Radio Merseyside.
He then achieved success as a playwright with an evocation of postwar Liverpool – Brown Bitter, Wet Nellies and Scouse – that was performed at the city’s Everyman Theatre in 1981, when he was the resident writer.
In all Jacques produced more than 20 novels in the “Redwall” series, ending with The Sable Quean (2010) and The Rogue Crew, due to be published later this year. He also wrote the “Castaways of the Flying Dutchman” series and two collections of short stories.
In 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Liverpool and in 2008 received an honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University.
Brian Jacques is survived by his wife, Liz Crampton, and their two sons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/8311935/Brian-Jacques.html
Brian soon demonstrated a precocious writing talent of his own. Aged 10, he was told to write a story about animals and turned in a tale about a bird that cleaned a crocodile’s teeth. His teacher refused to believe that a boy so young could write so imaginatively and caned Brian when he insisted he had not copied it.
Leaving St John’s School at 15, he joined the Merchant Navy as a seaman and travelled far and wide. On his return to Liverpool he worked as a railway fireman, a longshoreman, bus driver, policeman, postmaster and stand-up comedian.
With six others, including his two brothers, Jacques formed a folk group called the Liverpool Fishermen, which was popular in local pubs during the Mersey music boom of the 1960s, and released an album, Swallow the Anchor, in 1971.
In the 1970s Anvil Press published some of his humorous poems and short stories, beginning with Get Yer Wack in 1971. These were followed by Yennoworrameanlike, A Mersey Bible, Scouse with the Lid Off, and finally, in 1979, Jakestown, named after his popular weekly radio show, broadcast for more than 30 years on BBC Radio Merseyside.
He then achieved success as a playwright with an evocation of postwar Liverpool – Brown Bitter, Wet Nellies and Scouse – that was performed at the city’s Everyman Theatre in 1981, when he was the resident writer.
In all Jacques produced more than 20 novels in the “Redwall” series, ending with The Sable Quean (2010) and The Rogue Crew, due to be published later this year. He also wrote the “Castaways of the Flying Dutchman” series and two collections of short stories.
In 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Liverpool and in 2008 received an honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University.
Brian Jacques is survived by his wife, Liz Crampton, and their two sons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/8311935/Brian-Jacques.html
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